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 | JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT. |
| WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
|  | | Today: Trump taps Rep. Elise Stefanik as U.N. ambassador, President Herzog to meet with President Biden, remembering a Jewish veteran who spied for the U.S. after retiring from Major League Baseball, and why Gal Gadot gets a mazel tov. |
| | |  | President Donald Trump with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in Jan. 2020. (Shealah Craighead) |
| Staffing up
As President-elect Donald Trump huddles with his transition team to shape a new cabinet, several figures who played key roles in his campaign’s outreach to Arab Americans are pushing for him to adopt a more favorable stance toward Palestinians. That includes Massad Boulos, the Lebanese-American father-in-law of Tiffany Trump. Meanwhile, pro-Israel hawks in Trump’s orbit are also battling for influence. Our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh, explains. Go deeper ►
Related: Who might shape Middle East policy in a second Trump administration?
New this morning ► Trump named Rep. Elise Stefanik to be his ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik, a New York Republican, gained national attention in December for combative questioning of Ivy League presidents about their handling of campus antisemitism after Oct. 7. The congressional hearing led to the resignations of the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. |
|  | Baseball hats at a Jewish voter drive in Pennsylvania. (Getty) |
| Election aftermath
Opinion: This election shows that the idea of a cohesive American Jewish community is a myth, argues Eric Alterman. “We cannot agree, it seems, on anything,” he writes. Is Israel guilty of genocide? Are anti-Zionist protests inherently antisemitic? “The machers who run AIPAC, the ADL, the AJC” are “forever issuing statements about what Jews allegedly think and feel.” Read his essay ►
Plus… Religious freedom, antisemitism on college campuses and extremism are among the priorities for Jewish nonprofits under a second Trump term.
When Trump slashed funding for refugee resettlement, HIAS, the Jewish immigrant aid society, was hit hard. The group is now preparing to fight Trump’s promised mass deportations.
Meet Howard Lutnick, the billionaire philanthropist of Jewish and Israeli causes who’s leading the Trump transition team.
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| | |  | Police officers clear people away during a pro-Palestinian protest Sunday in Amsterdam. (Getty) |
| The latest… Hundreds of anti-Israel demonstrators gathered in Amsterdam Sunday, despite a ban on protests after Thursday night’s violent attacks on Israeli soccer fans. Police arrested dozens. (Times of Israel)
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof canceled his planned trip to U.N. climate talks so he could deal with the fallout. (AP)
Authorities in Paris said they will mobilize 4,000 officers to ensure safety at Thursday’s soccer match between France and Israel. Israel told citizens not to go to the game. (AP, Times of Israel)
Context… The violence was targeted at the Israeli visitors, not Dutch Jews or Jewish institutions. Still, our Arno Rosenfeld reports, many in the community were shaken, after a year in which antisemitic and anti-Israel activity has spiked. Go deeper ►
Marianne Katzenstein was 16 and at her family shul in Germany practicing the organ on the night of Nov. 9, 1938. She finished up, and used a key to lock the building, which was burned to the ground on Kristallnacht. This weekend, her daughter returned the key to the Jewish community of Bielefeld, where the synagogue was reestablished shortly after the Holocaust. (JTA)
Perspectives… Opinion: “Scenes of Jews being chased by violent mobs recall what my grandmother experienced as a child in 1930s Poland,” writes Nadav Ziv, “when residents hunted Jews with sticks and knives as she ran away, closed the blinds, and hid until the danger passed. Live long enough, and the phantoms of the past become real again.” Read his essay ►
For her latest column, our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, spoke with Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, who said she was “completely gobsmacked” by the Amsterdam attack, and hoped to visit the city after a trip to France this week.
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| | |  | Israeli President Isaac Herzog and President Joe Biden at a July 2023 Oval Office meeting. (Getty) |
| The latest… Israeli President Issac Herzog is set to meet with President Joe Biden on Tuesday at the White House. (Jerusalem Post)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he’d spoken with Trump three times in recent days. Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s strategic affairs minister, is in Washington today, and plans to visit Mar-a-Lago later in the week. (Axios)
Netanyahu tapped Yechiel Leiter, a diplomat whose son was killed fighting in Gaza, as the next Israeli ambassador to the United States. (JTA)
Israeli news outlets reported that Netanyahu acknowledged during Sunday’s cabinet meeting that Israel was behind the September pager attack on Hezbollah operatives, though their sourcing was unclear. (Times of Israel)
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|  | A sparse crowd listens to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speak at a pro-Israel rally Sunday at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. (Ron Kampeas) |
| ‘Where are all the Jews at?’
Actress Tiffany Haddish asked that question as she emceed a pro-Israel rally Sunday at Nationals Stadium in D.C., where speakers included Michael Herzog, the outgoing Israeli ambassador to the U.S., New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and family members of the hostages. The venue can seat more than 41,000 people, but JTA’s Ron Kampeas pegged the crowd at about 2,000. Go deeper ►
Poll position
The majority of American Jewish voters are open to a partial arms embargo on Israel until Netanyahu agrees to a U.S. proposal for an immediate ceasefire, according to an election day poll. The finding is notable because placing any conditions on American aid to Israel has long been a red line for leading Jewish groups — including the one that sponsored the poll, J Street. Go deeper ► |
| | READERS LIKE YOU SHAPE EVERY PART OF OUR WORKWhile the Forward is now free to read, it isn’t free to produce. As a nonprofit, member-supported newsroom, we answer to our readers, not to institutions. |
| | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
|  | “Regardless of our political affiliations or differences, we all have families we want to keep safe,” said Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Jewish Democrat from Florida. (Getty) |
| 👮 Police arrested a suspect in a plot to assassinate Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Jewish Democrat from Florida. Moskowitz said the suspect was a convicted felon and had a rifle and a manifest0 filled with “antisemitic rhetoric” with him when he was arrested near the congressman’s home. (Washington Post)
😲 In Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, a masked man tried to snatch a 6-year-old Hasidic boy who was walking on Saturday with his father and brother. Police later arrested a suspect. (1010 Wins, NY Post, X)
🍽️ Char Bar, a kosher restaurant in Washington, D.C., was vandalized Friday night, the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Two of the restaurant’s windows were broken. (NBC Washington, X)
In honor of Veteran’s Day ► Check out this story about Moe Berg, a retired Major League baseball player who spoke 10 languages and spied for the U.S. during World War II.
Mazel tov ► To Gal Gadot and husband, Yaron Varsano, on the bat mitzvah of their eldest daughter, Alma.
Shiva calls ► Kenneth Bronstein, a formerly observant Jew who led the NYC Atheists club and fought for the separation of church and state, died at 85 … Bruce Degen, who illustrated The Magic School Bus series of popular picture books, died at 79 … Baruch Thaler, a Hasidic mystic with a New Age soul, died at 56. Listen to him sing a Hasidic melody here. |
| | |  | The sign with 400 on it included photos of red-headed brothers Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were 9-months-old and 4 when they were kidnapped. (Getty) |
| Saturday marked 400 days in captivity for the hostages in Gaza. Hundreds gathered to protest outside the Tel Aviv headquarters of the Israel Defense Forces. |
| Thanks to Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Jodi Rudoren for editing it. |
| | Jewish journalism you can trust! |
| Without you, the Forward’s stories don’t just go unread — they go untold. Please support our nonprofit journalism today. |
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